You pay, we spray

Residents of the county who live along gravel roads now have an option to diminish dust kicked up by cars, trucks and trailers.

Franklin County Commissioners on Monday voted 3-0 to apply a dust-guard solution (magnesium chloride) if an individual or groups of individuals purchase the material.

“We’d really, really like to be able to pave all the roads in the county, but we aren’t in a financial position to do so. In fact, some counties have been tearing out asphalt roads and returning them to gravel just because of the maintenance costs,” said Commissioner Scott Workman.

“We’re not in that position, but we have to really stretch our road budget to maintain what we have,” he said.

A number of years ago the county routinely applied dust-guard, but that effort was stopped about four or five years ago because of the escalating cost of the material, Workman said.

“It has more than doubled in price in the past 48 months. We have opted to put a brine solution down on dusty roads as a substitute. We can apply the brine two times for what it would cost to apply dust-guard once,” he said. “The trade off is that it’s not as effective.”

Some time ago Workman said a group of individuals approached the commission concerned about dust being kicked up along their gravel road by heavy vehicle and trailer traffic.

“We considered their situation and voted to have our road crews apply the dust-guard if the material was paid for in advance. We hope this will be a workable solution for all concerned parties,” Workman said.